2016: a bad year for people who need real homes, not investments

[Saving For a Space Ship]

2016: a bad year for people who need real homes, not investments  

https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/dec/29/2016-housing-home-un-donald-trump?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Quote

...What animates those in the business of housing is the idea that housing is a matter for the financial elite: a place to park surplus capital to maximise wealth, with little concern or return for people struggling to live in dignity with a decent, affordable roof over their head. This engenders inequality and exclusion and takes out the social function of housing from the equation.

The virtual silence about this type of opportunism and its implications reflects the world in which we live. The more housing is dominated by corporate and financial elites who interact with it as an asset from which to reap a profit, with scant regulations, the more people who most need human rights protections are denied access: pushed to the peripheries because they cannot afford to live in cities, or removed from their homes and rendered homeless to make way for those with economic clout.

For those pushed out, housing is not about financial securitisation. It’s about securing the right to life. They describe their experiences in terms of their struggle for dignity; they articulate their circumstances as a denial of their humanity and their human rights.

I have met people in Asia, Africa, east and west Europe, and North and South America who are homeless or living in informal settlements, institutions, or containers; forced to live without safe drinking water, or electricity, amidst excrement and garbage, without adequate protection from inclement weather, with no bed to lie on, no place to wash or defecate; threatened by violence, insecurity, discrimination and stigmatisation. All are hanging by the thinnest thread.

One third of deaths worldwide are linked to poverty and inadequate housing, according to 2011 research published by Anne-Emmanuelle Birn, whose work also shows that the death rate among homeless people can be from two to 10 times higher than for those who are not homeless. Suicide rates in the US and Europe sharply increased in the aftermath of the 2008 mortgage crisis.

In so many ways housing is about human life, dignity and humanity. Fundamental human rights. How do we reconcile that with the dominant idea of housing as a commodity owned by faceless, nameless corporate elites who are left unaccountable to human rights obligations?

As we say goodbye to 2016 and look forward to a new year, we need to re-embrace housing for its fundamental dimensions – its social value as a place necessary for human wellbeing, where people raise families, build communities and participate in civic life. And we need to sell that notion of housing back to our governments to derail the collision course between human rights and investor interests....

 

Edited December 30, 2016 by Saving For a Space Ship
quote highlights

[wsn03]

Blimey...i thought the Gaurdian supported HPI...Im willing to bet written by yet another journalist who realises he cant afford to buy a house...wonder how he sneaked that in? Presumably the Editor was on Christmas holidays.

 

More anger to follow im sure.

 

[iamnumerate]

15 hours ago, wsn03 said:

Blimey...i thought the Gaurdian supported HPI...Im willing to bet written by yet another journalist who realises he cant afford to buy a house...wonder how he sneaked that in? Presumably the Editor was on Christmas holidays.

 

More anger to follow im sure.

 

only under labour

[billybong]

Tomorrow.an article pushing the so called benefits of house price increases.  There might even be one in the same issue.  

Edited December 30, 2016 by billybong